“Comedian” Chris Rock was in Washington, DC today along with other Hollywood leftists to express support for President Obama on the gun control issue. Funny thing is (or maybe not so funny, considering the creepy stuff he said), he didn’t mention guns at all. Here was his brief “statement” (hat tip):

I am just here to support the President of the United States. President of the United States is our boss, but he is also… you know, the President and the First Lady are kinda like the Mom and the Dad of the country. And when your Dad says something you listen, and when you don’t it will usually bite you on the ass later on. So, I’m here to support the President.

Frightening, isn’t it? But refreshing nevertheless. Why? Because most left wing Hollywood elites don’t have a freaking clue what they’re talking about the vast majority of the time when they are speaking about current events and political issues but they pretend to because they think it makes them look “smart” and “cultured” and “relevant.” The first clue this isn’t the case is usually when they open their mouths. Such as the video self-important celebrity liberals put out in January 2009 pledge to be a “servant” not to God, or family, or America – but to Obama:

However, in this particular case, Chris Rock ditched any pretense of understanding the very important issue he was there to support the President on and instead just said, look, he’s the President and our boss and dad so we must do what he says …. or else.

I’ll tell ya what – he got almost nothing right in what he did say but one thing he was spot on about was how not listening to “dad” could usually end up getting you in trouble later. That certainly is true with this administration, isn’t it? Agree and do what they tell you to or find yourself ostracized and ridiculed – and if you happen to work in the administration, you’ll find yourself promptly fired for reasons that don’t pass the smell test.

That’s the message from the government of President Mohammad Mursi when, faced with the reality that they cannot afford to buy enough food to feed everyone in a country with 40% unemployment, they tell Egyptians to shut up and eat less:

“Even Islamists have to eat,” I wrote under the headline “Food and Failed Arab States” in February 2011. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government takes a different view, the Washington Post reported yesterday. The trouble, the government says, is that Egyptians are eating too much. In a separate report, the government proposed to cut back its bread subsidy to three hand-sized loaves of pita bread per person per day, about 400 calories’ worth. A state that can’t feed its people is a failed state, and that’s why the Egyptian state is at the brink of collapse, as Egypt’s defense minister warned last week.

According to the Post report, the government is telling Egyptians (almost half of whom live on less than $2 a day) to eat less. You can’t make this sort of thing up. Egypt lost another $1.4 billion in foreign exchange reserves in January, and probably is flat broke after figuring in arrears to oil and food suppliers, and it imports half its food, so something had to give. In response, Egypt’s Islamist government is emulating North Korea’s approach to food shortages..”

Read the rest: Egypt is a mass famine just waiting to happen. Though the Islamist government owns the response to the crisis, the problem isn’t of their making; Egyptian governments have long subsidized the price of basic commodities, trying, as authoritarian regimes the world over have tried, to buy social peace by shielding consumers from the real prices of necessities like food and fuel. When the inevitable happens and the government can no longer afford to maintain those subsidies, thus leading to massive price increases, you get social disorder and, in Egypt’s case, a likely failing state.

There’s an interesting item at PJ Media reporting on a Media Research Center study about MSM hysteria over the “gun violence” crisis (1). MRC took a look at the broadcast networks’ news coverage after the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, and what they found is intriguing:

MRC analysts reviewed all 216 gun policy stories on the Big Three networks’ evening (ABC’s World News, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News) and morning show programs (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, NBC’s Today), beginning with the evening of the shooting through January 17, the morning after Obama made his speech surrounded by children who had sent him letters pushing for more gun control.

The results show staggering imbalance:

? Stories advocating more gun control outnumbered stories opposing gun control by 99 to 12, or a ratio of 8 to 1. ? Anti-gun soundbites were aired almost twice as frequently than pro-gun ones (228 to 134). ? Gun control advocates appeared as guests on 26 occasions, compared to 7 times for gun rights advocates.

CBS was the most stridently anti-gun rights network. By a whopping 22 to 1 ratio, CBS aired more stories that favored gun control (44) to those that supported gun rights (2), with 37 neutral pieces. ABC aired almost six times as many stories that favored gun control (29) to those that favored gun rights, with 25 neutral stories. NBC pushed for more gun control in 26 of their stories to just 5 that tilted in favor of gun rights for a 5 to 1 ratio, with 43 neutral segments.

That’s not news reporting, that’s agenda journalism at its worst. And I’m willing to bet many at the “alphabet networks” don’t even realize they’re doing this and would be appalled to be faced with the reality. They live and work in left-liberal echo chambers while thinking of themselves as guardians of the truth. (2)

Of course, on the other hand, I’m sure we can all point to reporters who see agenda journalism as the whole point — it’s a crusade, not a straight reporting of facts. Bernard Goldberg (formerly of CBS) has written a great book on this.

The problem is that so many people still get the majority of their information from the broadcast networks, the range of opinion on which is so slanted, that they themselves are trapped in that same echo chamber — a captive audience. It’s small wonder that so many people think more gun control is the answer, when they rarely get to hear intelligent advocates for the pro-2nd amendment argument, instead being shown kooks like Alex Jones. (3)

It’s a tremendous hill to climb to try to overcome this cacophony of media-generated hysteria, where facts are less-valued than feeling, but we have to try nonetheless.

Footnotes:
(1) As in that progressive favorite, “never let a crisis go to waste.” Even if you have to make one up.
(2) And there are some who really do play it straight, but far too few, sadly.
(3) Dear CS monitor: Alex Jones is not “ultra-conservative.” He’s a conspiracy-theory loon, and that’s it.

WASHINGTON – The Baltimore city government is on a path to financial ruin and must enact major reforms to stave off bankruptcy, according to a 10-year forecast the city commissioned from an outside firm.

The forecast, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release to the public and the City Council on Wednesday, shows that the city will accumulate $745 million in budget deficits over the next decade because of a widening gap between projected revenues and expenditures.

If the city’s infrastructure needs and its liability for retiree health care benefits are included, the total shortfall reaches $2 billion over 10 years, the report found. Baltimore’s annual operating budget is $2.2 billion.

[…]

The forecast will provide the basis for financial reforms that Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake plans to propose next week. The city has dealt with budget deficits for the past several years, closing a $121 million gap in 2010. But those deficits have been addressed with one-time fixes that haven’t addressed the long-term structural imbalance.

[…]

In Baltimore, the erosion of the tax base is easy to see. The city’s population has dropped from a peak of 950,000 in 1950 to 619,000 today, and while the decline has slowed, there have been few signs of the trend reversing. The median income is $40,000, and 22 percent of the city’s residents live in poverty, according to Census data. The city also has 16,000 vacant properties.

Baltimore already has the highest property taxes in Maryland — twice as high as in neighboring Baltimore County. The city’s local income taxes are the highest allowed under state law. While the city enacted some new taxes to deal with the 2010 deficit — including taxes on bottled beverages and higher hotel and parking levies — city officials say they can’t tax their way out of the problem without driving away residents and businesses.

Ya think?

Let me guess – Baltimore is primarily a liberal city run by Democrats, right?